In Jean Flori’s Knights and Chivalry in the Middle Ages, the author advances the idea that the cultural and religious roots of chivalry came from the fusion of distinctly different traditions.
He contended that the culture and norms of chivalry originated from a fusion of Roman, Germanic, and Christian elements. In the early Romano-Germanic kingdoms the ideals of the evangelical and the warrior values of pagan Germanic society came together to produce the early precursor to the chivalry of the High and Late Middle Ages.1 Over the course of centuries, the melding of such seemingly opposed cultural orientations as peacefulness and violence yielded a synthetic culture that never fully reconciled some of these tensions. Conceptions of honor closely reflected both these tensions and the harmonies that existed in this conjoining of ideals. In
particular, the examination of militant and religious perspectives reveals how very different opinions arose as to how one ought to acquire honor, what one should honor in another, and even who deserved to be honored. Reconciling the strong Christian orientation, even duty, towards establishing and maintaining peace with the clearly violent aspects of being a knight was no small task, and different authors approached this cultural discord in strikingly different fashions.
While some churchmen tried to mitigate the violence tearing apart medieval society by
channeling knightly violence into holy war, others blessed knights headed into battle even when they were destined to kill other Christians. Knights, on the other hand, accepted religious
justifications of their warrior lifestyles but only as additional motivation on top of their fundamental quest for honor.
1 Flori, 22-31.
In their books of chivalry, Llull and Charny proscribed similar types of honorable activities for knights to engage in, but each framed these militaristic functions as serving very different ends. Whereas Llull, through a religious lens, understood the role of knights as being defenders of peace, Charny saw knights’ violent actions as an end in themselves for gaining honor. Charny, for instance, when speaking of the greatest knights, wrote that
They look around, inquire, and find out where the greatest honor is to be found at that particular time. Then they go to that place and, in keeping with their natural good qualities, are keen to discover all the conditions of armed combat in war, and cannot be satisfied with themselves if they do not realize to the full their wish to find themselves there and to learn.2
As has been touched upon, Charny had a clear predilection for the active knightly lifestyle, and his view that for knights to become maximally honored they must perform many great “deeds of arms” reflected this penchant. Charny personally devoted himself to being a great warrior and was recognized as an exemplary knight as a founding member of French King John II’s Order of the Star.3 Therefore, one may evaluate his perspective in two ways: either one takes his view on how knights ought to comport themselves in order to gain honor with a grain of salt because he comes off as somewhat one-dimensionally oriented towards warfare, or one understands him as a knight par excellence and takes his perspective as a kind of distillation of the knightly
worldview. Insofar as knights formed a cohesive group within society by sharing a military duty, it is appealing to view Charny’s perspective in that second light. However, the realities of the knighthood undercut this analysis as overly simplistic. Though bearing arms may have been the prescribed occupation of knights according to a widely circulating tripartite view of society comprising those who pray, those who fight, and those who work the land, many so-called
2 Charny, 102.
3 Ibid, 15.
‘knights’ never actually acted in their military capacity.4 Thus, we find that Charny’s view of the best kind of knight being the one who occupies himself entirely with seeking out battles in order to gain as much honor as possible is simply one knight’s perspective on honor, and a knight devoutly attached to war at that. Though his views may have represented the warrior mentality taken to an extreme, such a perspective is highly informative for understanding a set of ideas that melded in myriad ways with pacific Christian ones in the minds of Charny’s contemporaries.
Charny’s reflections on knights’ legacies brought into focus the centrality of deeds of arms, in his worldview, as the means to the ultimate end of gaining honor. Charny wrote that
“[i]n this vocation [of being a knight] one should … set one's heart and mind on winning honor, which endures for ever.”5 For Charny, gaining honor was paramount not simply for the praise it garnered while one lived but, perhaps even more importantly, so that one might be honored beyond the grave. Charny saw honor as its own end; he told knights in his book written
specifically for them to pursue honor in order to be honored in life as well as in death. In Ramón Llull’s Book of the Order of Chivalry, we find a distinctly different perspective, reflecting, in no small part, Llull complex worldview as monk, mystic, and philosopher.6
Llull’s focus on the knighthood as an order in relation, especially, to the clerical order reflected his view of knights from a distinctly Christian perspective. The very notion of the tripartite society came from the Church itself (and was encoded in the Siete Partidas of Alfonso
4“Not all those who ride horses are knights; nor are all those who the kings arm as knights. They bear the name, but they do not engage in the exercise of war.”
“No son todos cavalleros quantos cavalgan cavallos; ni quantos arman cavalleros los reyes son todos cavalleros.
Han el nonbre; mas no hazen el exerçizio de la guerra.” (Díez de Games, 42.)
5 Charny, 99.
6 “Ramon Llull -- Britannica Academic,” accessed March 18, 2019, https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Ramon-Llull/48651.
X, Llull’s contemporary), so recognizing that the order referred to in the title of Llull’s work was the order of knights within that framework indicates, even from the book’s cover, that Llull advanced a theoretical ideal.7 Llull believed strongly in this fundamental interdependence
between orders, writing that “the most noble, the most honored, the closest occupations that there are in this world are the cleric and the knight; therefore, the greatest friendship there is in this world should be between cleric and knight.”8 He further wrote that “since the cleric does not follow the order of the clergy when it is contrary to the order of chivalry, so the knight does not stay true to the order of chivalry when it is contrary and disobedient to the clerics.”9 By Llull’s understanding these orders were not simply dependent upon each other, but they also needed to be in alignment so as not to run counter to each other. According to Llull, knights ultimately had to obey clerics. Thus, though these orders were theoretically interdependent and deferent to each other, the Church wound up having the final say in commanding obedience from the knights.
Herein lay the basis of Llull’s conception of the knighthood serving Christian ends.
7 Llull endorsed a tripartite view of society explained in the Siete Partidas. According to this vision of society, knights were referred to as defensores, or defenders. According to the classic formulation encoded in the Siete Partidas, “Defensores are one of the three estates through which God wished the earth to be maintained … those who pray to God for all the people are called oradores, and those who work the land and do with it those things by which mankind may live and be maintained are called labradores, and those who are to defend all the people are called defensores.”
“Defensores son, vnos de los ters estados porque Dios quiso que se mantuuiesse el mundo … los que ruegan a Dios por el pueblo, son dichos oradores, e otrosi los que labran la tierra, e fazen en ella aquellas cosas, porwue los omes han de biuir e de mantenerse, son dichos labradores: otrosi los que han a defender a todos son dichos defensores.”
(Alfonso X, 331.)
For a classic and thorough study of the medieval idea of the tripartite society see: Georges Duby, Three Orders:
Feudal Society Imagined, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
8 Llull, 30.
“los más nobles, los más honrados, los más cercanos dos oficios que hay en este mundo, son oficio de clérigo y oficio de caballero; y por eso la mayor amistad que hubiera en este mundo debería darse entre clérigo y caballero.”
9 Ibid.
“así como el clérigo no sigue la orden de clerecía cuando es contrario a la orden de caballería, así el caballero no mantiene la orden de caballería cuando es contrario y desobediente a los clérigos”
Within this Christian framework, Llull saw the primary purpose of the order of chivalry as the establishment and maintenance of peace. Llull stated very clearly that “as it was in the beginning, it is now the occupation of the knight to secure peace among men by the use of arms.”10 Though Llull and Charny were largely in accord about the ways in which knights went about gaining honor, Charny saw that honor as an end in itself, indeed the ultimate end for knights, while Llull viewed those honor-gaining activities through the use of arms as having to be oriented towards a pacific end.
Clerics who sought to prevent bloodshed between Christian armies corroborated Llull’s view of the knightly occupation being oriented towards securing peace. In Jean Froissart’s chronicle of the Hundred Years War there appears a noteworthy scene depicting a particularly active Church intervention in battle proceedings. King John II of France and Edward the Black Prince had ordered their troops and squared off for battle. Suddenly, the Cardinal de Périgord came riding up to King John beseeching the king to give him the opportunity to convince the English that the French thoroughly outnumbered them and that the English did not stand a chance. He appealed to King John first by flattering him: “you have with you here the whole cream of your kingdom’s nobility, pitted against what in comparison is a mere handful of the English.”11 After this attempt at convincing John that his army was vastly stronger than the opposing one, the cardinal invoked the honor he knew the king prized: “[i]f you could overcome them without a fight by accepting their surrender, it would redound more to your honour and advantage than if you risked this large and splendid army in battle.”12 Granted permission, the cardinal then rode over to Edward, attempting to convince him that the English army could not
10 Llull, 43.
"así como en los primeros tiempos, es ahora oficio de caballero pacificar a los hombres por la fuerza de las armas"
11 Froissart, 130.
12 Ibid.
possibly defeat such a force of Frenchmen. Over the course of more than a full day the cardinal carried proposals for truces full of insulting stipulations to-and-fro between camps. The Cardinal de Périgord attempted to stop the impending bloodshed between the French and English forces precisely by appealing to the object of their desire, honor. Yet while his reframing of honor as something to be gained by securing peace may have gibed with Llull’s view on the ends of the order of chivalry, it ran aground against these warriors’ fundamental understanding of warfare as the primary context in which to gain honor.
Though they may have entertained the cardinal’s attempts at forestalling battle, ultimately both sides displayed complete disregard for the Cardinal’s requests in favor of going to battle, demonstrating their commitment to the idea that the greatest honors were to be gained through violence. In a final response to these delays, Sir John Chandos, one of Edward the Black Prince’s greatest knights delivered a “great and memorable remark,” according to the chronicler. He pronounced to his lord, “[r]ide forward, sir, victory is yours! Today you will hold God in your hand. Let us make for your adversary, the King of France, that’s where the real business lies.”13 This call to arms in the face of a cardinal’s pleas is striking in its stridently sacrilegious tone, indicating a rebuttal of both the Cardinal’s request to call off the battle as well as a rejection of that cleric’s reframing honor as being gained through such non-action. On the French side, growing contempt for the cardinal’s failing attempts at securing peace resulted in an even more direct affront to the cardinal when they finally cried out in exasperation “go back to Poitiers, or wherever else [you like], and bring no more peace proposals, or it might be the worse for [you].”14 The knights of both parties could only tolerate so much interference by the Church,
13 Ibid, 136.
14 Ibid, 132.
which proposed a version of honor anathema to their own, before their greatest desire of winning honor through violence prevailed.
Knights’ resistance to the Church’s cries against violence also stood firm with regards to tournaments. While the Church attempted to prevent some battles, as in the case with the
Cardinal de Périgord, it held a particularly hard line on jousting and tournaments. The Council of Clermont of 1130, ordered by Pope Innocent II, condemned
absolutely those detestable jousts or tournaments in which the knights usually come together by agreement and, to make a show of their strength and boldness, rashly engage in contests which are frequently the cause of death to men and of danger to souls. If anyone taking part in them should meet his death, though penance and the Viaticum shall not be denied him if he asks for them, he shall, however, be deprived of Christian
burial.15
That stance, reaffirmed by the Church in 1179 and again in 1215, remained Church doctrine for centuries, but the reaffirmations simply pointed to the failure of the Church to gain traction in disallowing tournaments. In the fourteenth century, on and off allowances and prohibitions of tournaments by kings in France and England, where tourneying was particularly popular, indicated shaky support of the Church’s stance.16
In el Victorial, Díez de Games showed just how much value knights placed in the sport, writing that in a tournament in Paris Pero Niño “performed so many great deeds-of-arms, that all who were there spoke well of him; and they said that he … showed what great honor there was to be earned through the art of bearing arms and the occupation of chivalry.”17 Chroniclers like
15 “The Canons of the Second Lateran Council, 1123,” Internet History Sourcebooks Project, accessed October 22, 2018, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/lateran2.asp.
16 Flori, 145-146.
17 Díez de Games, 75.
“fizo tantos buenos fechos por sus manos en armas, que quantos ende heran fablauan vien; e dezían que él…mostraua que grand honrra auía de alcançar por arte de armas e oficio de cauallería.”
Froissart also showered praise on feats of arms in tournaments, revealing how these chivalric games remained enormously popular as a context in which knights could gain honor through violence in spite of the Church’s admonitions against them.18
This same understanding of violence as the best, or only, medium through which one could gain honor appeared elsewhere in Froissart’s chronicle as well as in El Victorial. In another of Froissart’s vignettes he turned to Ghent, in what is today Belgium, describing a scene where the captain-general Philip van Artevelde, under siege, explained to his fellow townspeople that he saw three possible courses of action: one, “to shut [themselves] up in th[e] town, blocking up all the gates, mak[ing] [their] sincere confessions and go[ing] into the churches and chapels, there to die shriven and repentant, like martyrs on whom none w[ould] take pity.” Two, to “all of [them] go, men women and children, with halters round [their] necks, barefoot and bare-headed, and throw [themselves] on the mercy of the Count of Flanders,” their assailant. And three, to
“pick five or six thousand of the fittest and best-armed men in [the] town and … go after [the Count of Flanders] at Bruges and fight him.”
With regards to the first option, Philip portrayed it as a religious course of action, saying
“[i]n that event God w[ould] have mercy on [their] souls and, wherever the news is known, it [would] be said that [they] died like brave and faithful people,” but clearly his rhetoric about this martyrdom was overshadowed by his claims about how the people of Ghent would be
remembered without pity. Philip’s rhetoric reflected a Charny-esque mindset, in which how one was remembered, that is how one was honored (or not honored), was of the utmost importance.
To the second course of action the captain-general proclaimed that “[i]f it w[ould] appease [the
18 Froissart, 375.
Count of Flanders’] anger, [Philip] w[ould] be the first to offer [the count] [his] head,” and continued by stating that “[he was] ready to die for the sake of the people of Ghent.”19 This was a clear setup to rouse his audience to take the third course, about which he declared that “[i]f [the people of Ghent were] killed in that venture it w[ould] be an honourable death. God w[ould]
have pity on [them] and men also … [they would] be the most highly honoured of any people since the Romans.”20 Though Philip said that the first option would produce a good result in the eyes of God, this final option, the one that the town ultimately chooses, was the best of both worlds. Not only would God pity these people, but, more importantly to Philip, as denoted by his describing the result of such action in comparison to a romanticized image of the Romans, this would be the most honorable way to die, and therefore represented the best choice. Philip’s rejection of the pacifist tradition of martyrdom in favor of fighting for honor even in the face of death displayed the high value that he and knights like Charny and Chandos placed in honor earned through violence.
Díez de Games took a more nuanced approach, recognizing honor as being gained in the securing and preservation peace, but denouncing it as valueless in comparison to the honor earned through violence. In a section of the chronicle telling the story of Bruto, the founder of Britain, Díez de Games quoted that hero as saying to his knights:
Friends, you already know how the fortune inherent in all things led me to gain title to this land where I live, and to the winning of a lady of high lineage. All this that I have, I have gained without battles or hard work. Well do you know that the thing which costs a man more to win is more valuable, and to this end, I do not value this honor I have
gained, because I got it without work … The authors do not praise that which a man gains in peace.21
19 Ibid, 232.
20 Ibid, 232-233.
21 Díez de Games, 156-157.